How Can a Bi-Coastal Family Stay Close?

In this installment of Gramma Good, we discuss bicoastal families and how to stay close despite the distance.

Hi Gramma Good: My grandchildren live on the opposite coast. I miss them dearly. Any ideas of how I can still have a close relationship with them?

Hi Opposite Coast: I also have children living far away from me. I feel how you feel. I often say to myself, “Why did Orville and Wilbur Wright invent the airplane!” It took my grandchildren away! Now that they have moved I say, “Thank goodness for Orville and Wilbur! I can now visit!” It is important to establish a relationship with the little darlings when they are little.

Visual contact across the miles can be accomplished. Skype, a service that offers video chat, with your children and have your grandchildren on their laps. Personal contact at an early age can also be accomplished.

Be ‘gramma the babysitter’ when your children take a vacation. As your grandchildren grow older and you have established the above you can add emailing. I have done this and have files of emails. It establishes a relationship across the miles and is a wonderful way of sharing feelings and storing priceless communications. Phone calls are also a way to establish a relationship, and I am the one who calls. I am the initiator. I make the effort.

Another way is through texting. Often I send a text saying, how r u, or I love u or I miss u. I get immediate responses. That forms a connection.

Traveling with older grandchildren is a wonderful way of bonding. The key: it is not important how much time you spend with your grandchildren. It is the quality of time. I can personally attest to that. When I see my grandchildren it is like I never left them. Love and happiness flow from gramma to grandchild and from grandchild to gramma.

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